Paul W. Powell Legacy Library

A little girl came to her mother one day and said, “Mother, what is God like?” The mother was cooking in the kitchen and didn’t have time to talk to her, so she said, “Ask your father.” The girl went to her father, “Father, what is God like?” And he answered gruffly from behind the paper, not wanting to be disturbed, “As...

In his interesting little book on Christian fundamentals, This I Believe, Louis L. Austin writes: “The Lord gave us two hands. One to hold to him, the other to our fellow man.” Two-handed religion. Loving God with heart and mind and soul—loving your neighbor as yourself. They go together and you cannot separate the two. Love is not mere sentiment and...

Years ago in a church I pastored, we had a faithful member. She was there every time the doors were opened. In a previous church she had been the president of the Women’s Missionary Union. As the leader of that ministry she had often led that church to pray for missions—for the conversion of the heathen and for the church to send missionaries to distant la...

Charles Drew was one of the great black American surgeons and scientists. He made a principal contribution to the American Red Cross blood program in learning and discovering that blood plasma, as opposed to whole blood, was not only acceptable but preferable in blood transfusions. Up until his time, if you wanted a blood transfusion, you could use only whole blood. W...

In Paul and Barnabas, we find these two good men, these longtime friends, divided over a very small, insignificant question. The question is bound to come to our minds—how in the world does something like this happen?  It can happen because the best of men are not infallible. You know we need to understand that though a man is a good man, it does not mean...

Several years ago word came to me that a fellow pastor was critical of me. I knew that it had to be something in his own life because we had never had any dealings with each other before. We had never had any conflict; we had never had any differences. We had had very few dealings at all. So I just ignored the first word that came to me. Then there came a second word...

I read some time ago that one of the directors of the Rockefeller Foundation said that the members of that organization are either patrons or they are partners. A patron is a person who lends his name and his support to an organization. He occasionally will attend one of the annual meetings. There is some kind of slight attachment to that organization. A patron intend...

Stanley Tam said that one day a man visited him and asked him a question that changed his life. “Do you have a friend?” he asked. Stanley said, “Well, sure I have some friends.” The man said, “No, I mean the kind of true friend who will stick with you. Suppose you fell into some great sin. Would he still love you and would he still help y...

A Roman Catholic bishop was visiting one of the churches in his diocese for the purpose of administering confirmation, and with the priest of the parish at his side, was examining a little girl candidate. Naturally the priest was especially anxious to have his charges make a good showing. Also, the candidates were nervous in the presence of the great man. The bishop...